Catastrophic injuries often occur in football, hockey, and other sports and activities as a result of excessive axial loading on the cervical spine and excessive force applied to the head. Such injuries are now occurring more frequently because participants in sporting and other physical activities are much larger and weigh considerably more than in previous years. In recent years, concussions and C-Spine injuries have become a huge issue in the country and particularly in the National Football League. Numerous players careers were shortened because of recurrent concussions with long term neurological consequences. There have also been numerous cases of paraplegia and quadriplegia. Although there has been a great deal of improvement in helmets, the magnitude of kinetic energy generated by impacts cannot be adequately dissipated or dampened by the current generation of protective headwear.
Therefore, there remains a need for improved head and neck protective devices that reduce or prevent injury to the neck, spine or head during sporting or other physical activities